Today is my youngest daughter’s and husband’s wedding anniversary, which made me ponder why weddings and marriage are important. This is a time of year when many weddings take place. Unfortunately, many couples do not host weddings or even get married; instead, they choose to live together without the formal legal process.
Because weddings are so expensive, many opt to skip the event and invest the money that would have been spent on a wedding into a down payment on a house or to pay down student debt. There is a debate surrounding this trend of skipping weddings. My question is, why are weddings important? What I discovered is that a wedding serves several purposes. One purpose is celebrating marriage within the community, increasing its visibility and value. Students are not being taught about marriage or family formation. I recently asked educators at a large conference how many highlight marriage and family as life goals for their students. Not one hand was raised. No wonder marriage rates are trending downward.
Weddings and marriage have been replaced by sliding into relationships, situationships, casual sex, and cohabitation, which have become the social norm. According to researcher and author Kay Hymowitz, there are two Americas: those who marry and those who do not, depending on educational achievement and financial resources. Hymowitz outlines this cultural shift in her book, Marriage and Caste in America. A new book entitled The Two-Parent Privilege: How Americans Stopped Getting Married and Started Falling Behind, by economist Melissa Kearney, explains how marriage is vital to financial and educational success. According to both scholarly books, marriage is a prosocial stabilizer and a pathway to upward mobility and human flourishing.
Marriage is important, and weddings are essential since one of the purposes of this celebration is to showcase the thoughtful, intentional, and public commitment of two individuals in the presence of family and friends. The most valuable purpose of a wedding is to provide a ceremony of spoken promises before God or state officials and witnesses. The couple recites their vows to each other, asking the community of people in attendance to support and mentor them. After the vows were spoken to one another at my children’s weddings, the officiant asked the guests to stand and pledge with an “I do” as well. The attendees promised support, guidance, and mentorship and to be available to assist these couples in their commitment to one another because, after every wedding comes a marriage with all the ups and downs of life, adventures, and obstacles.
One of the ways we, as a nation, can continue this tradition of weddings and celebrating marriages without the tremendous price tag is to ask organizations to host the wedding ceremony, allowing the couple to have as many guests as they desire. After the ceremony, they can host a celebratory punch and cake event in the reception area. In this way, the guests can witness this amazing life transition and offer support in the years ahead without going into debt. The more guests witness this life transition and the promise to care for one another, the more the couple feels supported and loved. After all, love, support, family, and community development are the true purposes of a wedding and a marriage. joneen@narme.org